View Single Post
Old 04-11-2014, 02:35 PM   #64
octothorp
Franchise Player
 
octothorp's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: not lurking
Exp:
Default

As I see it, the problem with the original question in the poll is that it (a) muddles the concepts of risk and blame; and (b) gives a platform for people to state that the victim can be responsible in any way.

Debating what the risk factors are, whether studies are statistically sound or not, what patterns exist amongst rapists and rape occurrences... these are all important debates to have (although personally I find reading rape-related stats one of the most depressing things imaginable, and I'm normally a stats junky).
But one of the first problems that we need to tackle is that rape is severely underreported. Solve this, and prosecution of rapists goes up, repeat offences go down, and our understanding of the scope and nature of the problem increases.
And the most basic thing that we can do to help solve this is to be absolutely unequivocal in stating that the victim is never to blame, and never takes a share of the blame, regardless of any factor. Whether they share blame is never an appropriate question to ask, even as a strawman or a rhetorical device or (especially) as an attempt to generate web-traffic and conversation, as I must imagine the CHED poll must have been.

The goal needs to be a society where all of these risk factors become irrelevant, where a woman never needs to wonder if certain decisions increase her risk. It's going to be a long road to get there: it needs to be reported more, it needs to be prosecuted better, and we need to do a better job of understanding and eliminating the factors that create and embolden potential rapists.
octothorp is offline   Reply With Quote
The Following User Says Thank You to octothorp For This Useful Post: